Headphones vs Monitors for Mastering WTF? Oh Hell no!.......never say never ;)

Headphone Mixing and Mastering ....the Pro's doing it today, while on the road and the modern day of laptops and audio interfaces, DAC Amps etc... its all good.
Bob Ludwig story was he asked Grace Design to build him a headphone amp, top notch for mixing or something. Also Skywalker Studios-Lucas had the same Grace amps and same headphones then given to all the engineers so they were all hearing the same thing.... ok the pro's have real work to do, they need all the tools.

HR,,,and the room.. The main reason I tried Headphones for Mix/Master Hobby... was just lazy, burn out and not wanting to setup yet another room and low needs ...so headphones were easy and cheaper. I dont have any GRAMMY recordings to work on anyway..lol
Closed Back HD280 for tracking and Open Back BD880 250ohm for Mix/Master. My stuff sounds amateurish either way Monitor+ Room or Heaphone+Amp.

A few interfaces put a little more thought into their headphone amps...I found my old UX8 headphone amp was so close to the GRace Design I didnt need it. The Line6UX8 was designed for 250-600 ohm and it takes any headphone...the FOCUSRITE Clarett supposedly touts this too, but Ive never heard one....
Most other interfaces I tried UX2, a couple Motu, Behringer,a few Focusrite I tried have low volume on higher impedance headphones. ...but work fine with 32~80 ish headphones.

Enter the new craze....and a odd 20ohm spec?
AUDEZE LCD-X seem to be a favorite but only have 18ohms~20ohms? So they work with a laptop amp or a common audio interface headphone amp as I read reviews.
Audeze only makes planar magnetic headphones. They differ from ordinary dynamic headphones by using a thin foil suspended between two magnets, where the foil vibrates with the electrical signal and produces sound. It is a kind of hybrid between dynamic drivers and electrostatic panels. Think a kind of electrostatic panel that doesn’t need external power to be activated; the electrical music signal is enough.-TechnReviewz
$1800 $1200// for the original LCD-X makes rooms and monitors look cheap? Used $750?

will my monitors wind up sitting unplugged next to my old hifi stuff...gathering dust? looks like a yes for me.
 
TalismanRich said:
Something that seems to rarely be mentioned is that using speakers vs headphones is a bit analogous to using vinyl vs digital. With records, you typically have about 20-30dB channel crosstalk, so even if the original recording was set for the sound to come from one channel, there will be some bleed into the opposite channel. Likewise, when you are listening to speakers, if the sound is coming completely from one side, the ear on the opposite side will hear some of the sound which our brains use for localization.

With digital sources, you essentially have complete channel separation, in the 90+dB range. Likewise headphones completely separate channels so that you will never hear left channel sounds in the right ear. That generally sounds unnatural to me. I rarely mix anything with 100% channel separation unless it is a stereo recording where you have channel bleed built in. For mixing mono tracks like a voice or direct guitars, I will start with a 50 to 75% setting on the pan control in Reaper, which brings some of the sound it an apparent spot between the ear. It seems to make tracks sound more similar between speakers and headphones.

I remember reading someone's complaint about some Beatles albums on CD, where all the voices were on one side and most of the instruments were on the other. He said it sounded really fake, not like "the record". Yet if you listen to the stereo record, you could tell that the track was mixed that way, it was just that the image blended somewhat due to the limited separation of the system.

I'll never use only one or the other.
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Theres info on why that happened.
As everything with Beatles its been discussed and the 3 track with no panning abilitys of the times and then the common being Mono...and the new stereo Master was not handled as George M wanted it went into pressing as a "odd stereo" as I get it?
.....but he didnt plan that separation to be released like that , he tracked with bands on one side and vocals on the other for needs in overdubbing etc...

maybe call it a evolutionary time of Mono and Stereo starting.... and as Mickster said most had Mono car radios and Mono home players so the majority had Mono....so playing those same vinlys on a mono system it was more as Geroge M intended and the stereo split sides wasnt intended to be heard that way at all, as I understand the articles.

Mono and Stereo...wild stuff.
Like Sgt Pepper is really different in Mono than Stereo...especially the FX are more pronounced on LSD..er...Lucy in the SKy...
but still the 45's were all Mono mixes up to Get Back I read... Stereo definitely strong by the White Album and before, but eventually everyone dropped MONO right?

I recall my brothers headphones and it was like a major treat to listen to stuff through them, a whole new experience...KOSS PRO4A...still being made but without the liquid filled ear pads..lol

Headphones is like another view of the music, so deep and miniscule stuff heard....as in contrast to the other day I was at a BBQ place and music playing through some crap speaker in the ceiling sounding like ass, but a top hit song....and I thought of all the pain and work put into that song recording and here it is played back in a shitspeaker restaurant with people burping and clanking forks and knives...while it played. So whats the point? IDK.,
 
grimtraveller said:
You're absolutely right. For some reason, I was thinking of headphones as opposed to speakers. There's no way your ears won't pick up all of the signals coming from speakers, no matter where they are panned or where you are in the room, if you have 2 good working ears.
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Respect due.
 
TAE said:
What do you call 10 Joe Bidens lined up ear to ear in a row ...An air tunnel! :laughings: Yeah Blonde jokes go well with Joe
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The next day Penelope announced that she would marry the man who could string Odysseus' great bow and shoot an arrow through twelve rings in a line. After all the suitors had tried and failed the beggar asked to try. The suitors protested, but Telemachus stood up for the beggar, who then strung the bow and fired the arrow through the rings.
 
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spantini said:
The next day Penelope announced that she would marry the man who could string Odysseus' great bow and shoot an arrow through twelve rings in a line. After all the suitors had tried and failed the beggar asked to try. The suitors protested, but Telemachus stood up for the beggar, who then strung the bow and fired the arrow through the rings.
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So here's the crazy thing. Shooting arrows through rings is easy...like fish in a barrel...Shooting them through steel axe heads takes some real mojo.
 
Slouching Raymond said:
Some of it will travel through the skull to the other ear.
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Maybe my head is a bit too thick, but I don't hear the sound on the other side with my headphones. :unsure:

I was remembering another trick that some of us did in our "youth". Ever lay the speakers on their sides, about 2ft apart, and then lay down with your head right between them? Then you get some really cool album where the sound is flying from side to side (Hendrix Electric Ladyland - 1983 A Merman I should Turn To Be is a prime example). It's especially fun on a dark night......


CoolCat said:
Mono and Stereo...wild stuff.
Like Sgt Pepper is really different in Mono than Stereo...especially the FX are more pronounced on LSD..er...Lucy in the SKy...
but still the 45's were all Mono mixes up to Get Back I read... Stereo definitely strong by the White Album and before, but eventually everyone dropped MONO right?
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I understand the reasons, but my point was that with a record, you have limited separation. A Neumann lathe was spec'd at 40dB separation. My Ortofon cartridge specs at 20dB crosstalk, and of course with records you have the bass pretty much centered to make tracking easier. With a CD, it's just a complete separation.

Remember the old "Mono Reprocessed for Stereo" records? Most of those things were pretty awful. I wonder what those producers/engineers would think today, when you have AI separating instruments from a fully mixed track. You could pull out each section and then mix it like a typical multitrack.recording.
 
weird transition times... in hindsight. marketing and engineering....
I dont understand a lot of the science and specs that deep grooves and vinyl cutting...good stuff. A science Ive read only a few articles on, George Martin had a section in the Making Music book on that vinyl mastering and machines.Still like magic.

yes, faintly recall the Mono-made into Stereo stuff, it was all different times. Stereo was the new big thing.lol Another reason to repackage and sell those old mono records!
 
TalismanRich said:
Remember the old "Mono Reprocessed for Stereo" records? Most of those things were pretty awful
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The only one I ever recall was the Rolling Stones' "Through the past, darkly", the UK version.1687072221085.png
It has one of my favourite album covers and it was an album that processed the ground and laid the foundations for a complete musical revolution for me, back when I was 16. In those days, it was called "electronically enhanced for stereo."
I was younger then, and inexperienced in the ins and outs of stereo and so it all sounded great to me. The only noticeably different and odd sounding song was "You better move on."
Mind you, as I got older and listened to the Stones' 60s stuff more, I was less and less impressed by their actual recordings. I think they were one of, if not the, worst bands sonically on record back then. I still love the songs though, despite the less than stellar recording quality.
TalismanRich said:
I wonder what those producers/engineers would think today, when you have AI separating instruments from a fully mixed track. You could pull out each section and then mix it like a typical multitrack.recording.
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I think they'd be jealous. Going back decades now, there has long been this thing where filmmakers and recording engineers want to go back and update what they did. My foible, but I find this really irritating. Just leave the art alone and use what's around now to work on new stuff. It's like going back and colourizing old black and white photos. Bring them to me and I'll burn them !
 
Good point Grimm. It's a lot like colorizing old B/W TV shows, like I Love Lucy. It's amazing how many B/W films from the 30s/40s/50s have been colorized. The list is long!
 
The thought of "Psycho" in colour is enough to tempt me to go psycho !
I understand why many people like to update things they've been used to for 30, 40, 50 years. Remixes, remasters etc.
I'm just not one of them. It would be like my wife getting a new set of teeth, when her natural ones are still working, even though they be 58, and chopping off half her stomach for a flat belly. No thanks !
 
grimtraveller said:
I think they'd be jealous. Going back decades now, there has long been this thing where filmmakers and recording engineers want to go back and update what they did. My foible, but I find this really irritating. Just leave the art alone and use what's around now to work on new stuff. It's like going back and colourizing old black and white photos. Bring them to me and I'll burn them !
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I say the imperfections are part of the art, and should stay that way.
 
I just got the Steven Slate VSX system with decicated headphones and software that makes it sound like you are in different listening environments.

Have to say that after a week of listening on them and getting used to it, it is amazing how it sounds like I am in a room and not using headphones.

Looking forward to mixing some stuff with it soon.
 
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